How Does a Migraine Feel?

How does a migraine feel? That's a question I hear often, so I decided to finally write down how they feel for those that are curious, skeptical, or those that feel them and recognize the sensations. 

While I was having a migraine one day, a close friend said she wanted to have a migraine just once to know how it felt. She then asked me what it felt like, I thought this was a horrendous idea, but I explained to her how they feel and why she does not want to have even one migraine any more than wanting to have just one epileptic seizure. Migraines are unfortunately also outrageously destructive and misunderstood. 

*Medically migraines are equally as debilitating as epilepsy. 

While I do succeed in much that I aspire and set my mind to, the pain of migraine is a painful and time losing hinderance. 

It is something I normally cannot remember because they are so painful that my mind blocks out the memory of it by flooding my body with natural pain-killing chemicals. By the time it's over I have little recollection of it, other than knowing I was in severe pain, unable to do things and lost valuable time. 

They're all different for me. I never know how long it will be, or in what way it will be painful. The closest thing I can describe is if someone sawed open your head while you're awake and was electrocuting your brain and because of it, you can't think clear enough or have the motor skills to reach up and pull out the electrocuting wires. Other times it feels like someone is squeezing the sides of my skull with a metal vise and I can feel my eyes painfully squishing out and my skull cracking under the pressure. Sometimes it feels like my brain is swollen and scraping against bone on the inside of my skull. At those times while lying there unable to do anything, I fantasize about taking a drill or an ice pick to my head to release that pressure. Scent is also intensified horribly and beyond belief. I have even gone so far as to consult with a perfumer to find scents that would not aggravate my migraines. This is important because certain scents that I have smelled during a migraine, will trigger a new migraine if smelled again.

But I look fine, normal even on the outside, maybe just a little tired to anyone around me often. In contrast, I feel like I look like a drooling invalid banging into a wall over and over again while simply trying to reach the right elevator button so I can escape the fluorescent lighting as quickly as possible. I’m wearing my sunglasses indoors, which surely seems odd to onlookers, but they are necessary.

I can't control any of it of course, and can't sleep because it screams at me like a loud gym whistle in my ear that only I can hear. Simultaneously the brightest pin-point laser-lights and fireworks are stabbing into my eyes even though I may be alone in complete darkness with my eyes shut tight. Clinically it’s called aura, and the feeling is even more nauseating when I am in actual daylight or office lights which is more often the case, as rarely is there a quiet dark corner to rest in public.

My migraines often start out as a tingly feeling and slowly enshroud my thoughts dulling my cognitive reactions that would otherwise clearly tell me that an episode of intense pain is about to take place, and I should take my medication. But it is strangely not that clear.  I can be having a migraine for hours and continually wonder if I should take my medication. This is why my medical alert dog is so imperative. His reaction is instant, clear and precise. If he reacts, then I know I need to take medication which he is also trained to bring to me. 

But to some businesses, their untrained employees or uneducated customers, I don't appear "disabled" as per needing a service animal, and am perceived as selfishly wanting to bring my pet where others can't. When I can, I use it as an opportunity to teach people about the disorder, about service animals, and rights of the disabled in general if they care enough to listen, but some days I am not able to or they just don’t want to listen. 

Often, I might be driving when a migraine attack happens and I can't focus on any tasks easily so I drive slower like a centurion trying not to pin-ball through her neighborhood to get home which I do not recommended. If my car had a back seat, I would crawl under a dark blanket back there, but it’s not an option. Perhaps I should get the long wheelbase Phantom? That would surely be a restful place to recover!

Sometimes during a migraine, I have to answer intense questions in meetings that can't be rescheduled. Talk about a recurrent nightmare scenario... I can't always piece together what is being said or asked through the intensely distracting pain and so in a panic, my heart begins to race, my breathing becomes shallow and all the muscles and blood vessels around my head squeeze my perception of reality even further so I feel like I'm talking and listening underwater and don't know how to respond, so the attendees simply take down the details I can manage to relay, while looking at me confused at my clear distraction, possibly thinking I’m just not interested in the subject.

I am well dressed and look normal so they may think I'm just being dismissive, careless, unprepared or even arrogant and combative by not answering clearly. Too often people take it personally. To them, clearly, I am a normal capable human that is just being obnoxious or lazy. 

In the end, I drive home if I can, trying not to cry of frustration and helplessness because it will only intensify the physical pain. Sometimes I just sit in my car for hours, contorted in an attempt to find relief because I can't see to drive.

There is no cure, but there is sometimes relief in distraction, isolation, darkness, silence, and on occasion passing out from the pain. The medication I take is called rizatriptan benzoate. It is orally disintegrating for times when I cannot swallow. It has its own unsavory and nauseating side effects and sometimes it does nothing to ease the pain. I also take 400mg of vitamin B2 daily as prescribed by my new neurologist. I'm told I need to give that one a few months to feel the effects.

Hospitals can administer quick pain relief if I can get there, but driving is not possible when the pain is that intense, and even then, when their medicine wears off, the migraine returns.

So, in any case, that is the best I can describe how my migraines feel. I hope it answers your questions, and if not feel free to reach out and ask.

When life gives you lemons, make a cleaning solution and scrub that mess away. *Unless your migraine has an aversion to cleaning scents. In that case just make lemonade when you feel better...